The
smartphone world is changing and it's changing fast. Companies that
were big performers for years are now seeing their profits and market
share slide precipitously. Among the companies are Microsoft and
Palm.

Palm was recently
purchased by HP and Microsoft is seeing the market share of its
Windows Mobile offerings plummet as phone makers migrate to open
platforms like Android. Android devices are burning up the global
market and in the U.S., Android
has now outpaced the iPhone in market share for Q1
2010.

The global
market for smartphones is very similar reports Reuters.
Android was the fourth most popular operating system sold globally in
Q1 2010 according to Gartner.
That puts Android's global reach ahead of Microsoft's mobile OS and
Android is gaining on the iPhone quickly on the global market.

As
the Android OS grows in popularity, more and more developers are
working on apps for the OS. Chris Moore from Redpoint Ventures said,
"I am quite impressed by the traction the Android ecosystem is
getting." He goes on to say, "I want to say that on the
current trajectory, they (Android) will pass the iPhone platform, or
at least reach parity by the end of this year or middle of next
year."

The most pressure is definitely being put on
Microsoft in the global smartphone market. The company is the only
one who charges handset makers a licensing fee for its smartphone OS.
More and more companies that traditionally built Windows Mobile
devices are looking to Android as a free and more popular
alternative.

In addition to looking at the reach of smartphone
OS' globally, Gartner also
looked at the most popular
device makers around the globe. Nokia still holds the top
spot with 35% of the global handset market. Samsung is next with
20.6%, LG has 8.6%, RIM has 3.4%, and Apple takes seventh place on
the list with 2.7% of the market. The top smartphone OS in the world
is Symbian with 44.3% of the market, Blackberry OS is next with 19.4%
of the market, iPhone has 15.4% of the market, with Android at 9.6%
of the market. Windows Mobile has 6.8% of the smartphone OS
market.

"In the first quarter of 2010, smartphone sales
to end users saw their strongest year-on-year increase since 2006,"
said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.
“This quarter saw RIM, a pure smartphone player, make its debut in
the top five mobile devices manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its
market share by 1.2 percentage points. Android’s momentum continued
into the first quarter of 2010, particularly in North America, where
sales of Android-based phones increased 707 per cent
year-on-year."

Milanesi went on to say, "Growth [for
Apple] came partly from new communication service providers in
established markets, such as the UK, and stronger sales in new
markets such as China and South Korea. The second quarter of 2010
will be a very important one for Apple. We expect that Apple will
present its new iPhone in June during its Worldwide Developer
Conference, which will be the first to feature the latest release of
the iPhone OS that includes welcome improvements for developers and
users, such as multitasking."

Comments

Threshold

Username

Password

remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled